


In Costume

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Children, Cosplay, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Halloween, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5121248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever came to Patchwork Labs. So why was he stuck opening the door to a gaggle of small humans demanding enamel-rotting sweets when he has <i>just</i> gotten his son to sleep?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Costume

The only reason he even opened the door was because he assumed it was Spirit, come to convince him to go to whatever Halloween party he had been invited to that year. Stein believed, optimistically, that he would be spared this year’s pleading due to the tiny detail of becoming a father.

Babysitters were expensive, as Spirit well knew, and beyond which, Stein really didn’t feel up to dragging Spirit back to his apartment after his friend would, without doubt, lose his shirt and his dinner in a random potted plant. Any excuse he had to avoid such a fate, he would grasp onto like a dying man to life.

So, he made a groan of annoyance when he heard the knocking, sighing through his nose as he continued to rock Victor. The boy, barely awake, didn’t seem to be too disturbed by the loud banging, especially with the sound of the shower running. Marie had decided to take one after Victor refused to cooperate with her when she tried to put him to bed, and thus, was now required to clean spit-up off of herself, and he just knew she’d end up complaining about having to go to bed with wet hair.

Stein set his son on his hip, supporting him with one arm and rolling his eyes as he turned and made his way to the door.

When he opened it, however, he wasn’t expecting the gaggle at his feet.

“Trick or treat!” they called, grinning their semi-toothless grins, the group of them looking like they were vomited on by a strange combination of fake blood and neon. 

Children. Small humans, right at his door.

He was baffled: no one ever dared to come to patchwork labs, before. Parents wouldn’t allow their offspring to come flocking to the porch of a notorious “madman”, all too afraid they wouldn’t get their spawn back from such a fate. And yet, there they were. Awaiting sweets that were detrimental to their enamel and staring up at him with awe.

The screw, he figured. Victor was fond of it, as well.

He was at a loss. General etiquette indicted that, due to opening the door, he was now required to hand over something. He looked around, eyes blinking.

No good. The only things in the general vicinity were Victor’s pacifier, still in his mouth, some spare house keys, and too much mail he hadn’t gotten around to throwing out, yet. He turned back to the small flock, eyes zoning in the child dressed as Frankenstein’s monster, who was grinning at him, practically vibrating in excitement.

For the barest moment, he had the distinct want to tell them to get off his lawn, as their loud squawking was going to wake his son and he’d already spent a good fourteen minutes trying to calm the child. But, the majority of him was too busy looking for something, anything, to throw into the pumpkin pails of the children before him as though offering sacrifice.

Death be merciful, he was at a deadlock with a group of what would barely constitute as toddlers.

It was only the giggle he heard behind him, coming from Marie as her soul warmed in amusement, which seemed to bring him out of his musings. When he craned his neck, turning to look at his supposed savior, she wasn’t in the bathrobe she would have usually donned, fresh out of the shower. No, instead, she had decided to wrap herself up in one of his old lab-coats, a pair of lens-free glasses on her face, though she had still donned her eyepatch.

Atop her golden head, hair darkened from the water of her shower and still dripping over the lab-coat, was the headband he had made, as a prank, with the bolt identical to his own attached.

She was dressed like him, wielding a basket of Kit-Kats.

Never had salvation looked so inviting.

Calmly, she stepped around him, smiling at the children and cooing at their outfits, giving out two pieces of candy to each child and waving at their parents, who stood farther back with warm smiles on their faces. It felt so strange, to be standing there, his son definitely asleep as he was no longer making those soft sounds of confusion and complaint, welcomed by a community that had shunned him since he was a boy.

Marie finished dropping the sweets into the pails and giggled at their “thank you!”s, the parents standing patiently, unafraid, in the distance. Some of them even urged the more shy children on, telling them to “thank the nice family”.

He didn’t really know what to think.

It was only when Marie closed the door after the group all ran back to their parents, talking about how they loved Kit-Kats, that he finally broke his general silence.

“You bought candy?” he asked, eyes blinking in confusion behind his glasses. Marie only smiled, laughing and pushing some of her hair off of her shoulder, where the water had darkened the fabric of the lab-coat.

“I figured we’d get a few trick-or-treaters! I remember being that young…” she trailed off, setting the basket down on the table she’d ended up putting right at the door, when they were baby-proofing the lab. Cutting herself off, she looked at him and made a delighted sound when she spotted their slumbering son, still cradled to Stein’s side. She grinned, the joy settling into her very soul when she scooped Victor up from his spot at Stein’s hip, careful not to jostle him.

“You got him to sleep!” she said, looking up at her partner with wonder.

It was rare, really. Vic was a fussy boy, and though it was obvious that he loved his father, it was his mother that Victor really warmed to. Usually, if he wasn’t lulled by Marie, he wouldn’t be lulled at all. Victor was a momma’s boy, through and through, always calmed when Marie was around, seeming to take comfort in her very existence.

Like father, like son, Stein supposed.

He took notice of Marie making her way to the nursery and he followed, his eyebrows meeting slightly as he thought back to the experience of opening his door to trick-or-treaters for the first time. In front of him, he watched while Marie smiled and hummed softly, cradling their son to her chest until she finally stepped into his room, easily finding her way through the darkness. Stein stopped at the door, leaning almost all of his weight against the frame and watching as she moved the stitched up blankets aside, setting Victor down on his bed and gently petting his silver hair. There was nothing illuminating the space save for the stars outside, so it was easy to make out the faint, golden glow Marie had about her skin at all times.

He didn’t realize he was smiling, watching her put their son to bed, until Marie got up from setting Victor down and turned to him, looking pleased in the same way she always did when she’d spot his lips tipping up.

No one else would ever find his twisted grins endearing, not like she did. He supposed it was a good thing Marie was stranger than anyone else could have anticipated. No, no one else would be able to be so comfortable with him, in the lab that had always been called nothing but creepy in the worst way, before.

His mind reared back to the gaggle of children at his door, and he wondered if anyone else would be brave enough to come to his home, calling for sweets.

Or, perhaps it wasn’t bravery on their parts: not anymore.

The thought didn’t sit as unpleasantly as he would have once believed.

He blinked himself back to the present when Marie gently tugged him out of their son’s doorframe so that she could better close the door, and when he took a good look at her, he realized that, though she had the lab-coat wrapped around her, all her actions had made it gape open at the top, her legs showing from the bottom.

The bare skin he saw, not obscured by any sort of shirt or other clothing, likely smelled like her vanilla bodywash.

He smirked, more than amused at her choice of costume and crowding close to her before she turned and found herself trapped between his body and the door. Though anyone else would be surprised, she only bent her head back, looking up at him with her single eye glinting sweetly behind her false spectacles.

“You’re dressed like me,” he informed, humor in his voice as he locked gazes with her.

She giggled. “Well, it’s Halloween. I didn’t have the time to draw the stitches on, though,” she replied, tilting her head to the side, slightly.

“Or to put on pants?”

“Hmmm,” she started, her soft smile twisting into something more resembling a smirk. “I must have forgotten that part.”

He’d been rubbing off on her: had she taken the time to draw on the stitches, that expression would have likely twisted them the way his own twisted whenever he grinned.

When she pressed herself back against the door, she brought her hands up to remove the false glasses and her eyepatch in one go, the motion bringing the lab-coat she had wrapped around her completely open.

“Trick or treat?” she asked, bringing a hand on his shoulder and settling on tip-toes when she noticed that he had hunched down, bringing his face close to her own.

“Surprise me,” he replied.

Her grin widened.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!!


End file.
